New Mint Minted

Version 16 of the popular Linux desktop reveals new tools, edge-snapping, and performance improvements.

The Linux Mint team has released of Linux Mint 16 "Petra." Previous versions of Ubuntu-based Mint have made it one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions in the world -- and put it in first place on the distrowatch download list. The Mint team appears poised to maintain that momentum, announcing several changes to the desktop environments, as well as system and performance improvements under the hood.
Mint posted separate press announcements for the separate editions centered around the Cinnamon and Mate desktops environments. Both versions include performance improvements for the Software Manager and Update Manager. Mint ISO images are no longer compressed, which means they take more space but perform better in Live boot scenarios. Both versions also report system changes resulting in safer kernel updates, faster boot, better EFI support, and better support for the Steam game engine.
Cinnamon has a new user management applet, as well as updates to the Nemo file manager and new edge-snapping feature based on the Snap feature of Xbox One. The Mate edition (based on Gnome 2) gets a new login screen, a new tool for formatting USB sticks, and many artwork improvements. See the Linux Mint website for information on downloading and installing Mint 16.

The DVD attached to this issue brings you a pair of the world’s most popular Linux distributions. Mint 15 “Olivia” is the latest release from the ever-friendly Linux Mint, a desktop distro based on Debian and Ubuntu that keeps the emphasis on simplicity and ease of use. Mint tops the DistroWatch downloads list and describes itself as: “The 4th most popular home operating system after Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS, and Canonical’s Ubuntu.”

The new Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon Edition long-term support release offers five years of upgrades, tweaks, improvements, and stability through 2019. Mint 17 has spiffed up its appearance and made changes so apps launch faster and use fewer resources.